


Shadows fade into the light

by itsamagicalplace



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Philinda AU Challenge, Set in the canon verse (mostly), Soulmate AU, playing with the timeline, soulbonds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-27
Packaged: 2018-03-19 17:59:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3619080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsamagicalplace/pseuds/itsamagicalplace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Soulmates weren’t necessarily connected by romance. One could have a soulmate solely based on platonic connection. It was the bond that was important, and whilst the majority were indeed vested in intimate relationships, there were also many pairs who lived simply as lifelong friends.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the AU Challenge of "Soulmates", hosted over on Tumblr by philindaau

A soulbond could take many different forms.

Some people spoke of how the moment their skin touched that of their destined partner, their whole world bloomed with rainbow hues, colour seeping through their life and drifting into iridescence.

Others told stories of how they were born with words, inked to their skin like tattoos of DNA, and only once they found the individual who spoke those words to them in greeting, would they realise the connection.

There were tales of sounds, of images, of shared dreams and visions. Of instantaneous knowledge that two were destined for life together.

Soulmates weren’t necessarily connected by romance. One could have a soulmate solely based on platonic connection. It was the bond that was important, and whilst the majority were indeed vested in intimate relationships, there were also many pairs who lived simply as lifelong friends.

Melinda’s mother told her how she had heard the whispers of the trees, the lullabies of the world singing to her the day she brushed past Melinda’s father. Tian May promised her daughter she would not need find a soulmate to live a complete life, but Melinda spent her childhood and teen years searching, shaking hands with those she met, skin contact sought with each stranger upon new encounters.

Not once did her world change.

She threw herself into work instead, the desire to meet her “perfect match” fading as she watched her mother struggle to continue life as normal, once Melinda’s father had passed.

Maybe it wasn’t worth it.

She joined SHIELD, training under none other than the director herself, and soon enough, Melinda May found herself at the top of every class, a force to be reckoned with even before her official missions began.

It was the life she wanted, and she had no need any more to find somebody else.

* * *

 

Everything changed three weeks into official assignments.

She’d graduated from the academy a month previously, and had completed three missions already.

The fourth was a hostage rescue, and she was paired with an agent she knew well from their time together at the academy; Agent Phil Coulson.

The two had been friendly enough during their years there, sharing the occasional class, taking a dance elective together that she later dropped out of after only two sessions.

Their first mission had been together, a retrieval op in Sausalito, and after the disaster of her ending up in the bay for five hours, they both had desperate hopes this would be more of a success.

No such luck.

Their target opened fire on them whilst they were attempting to enter the building from a side door, and it was only with sheer luck that the first few shots missed them both by inches.

On impulse - later she would be unable to explain her reasoning behind the motion - Melinda grabbed Phil’s hand, dragging him away from the wall of the building, as the shots above began to rain down upon the rough red bricks, right behind where they had stood.

They ran.

It was unexpected, the bond that formed between them, the instant her skin touched his own, fingers clasped tightly around his hand as she lead them both away and to relative safety, as fast as she could.

Both could feel the vibrations pulsing through the skin of their joined fingers, and they shot each other the occasional glance, knowing all too well what the reverberations through their blood meant. But with the situation as tense and hostile as it were, it took a while before they could actually stop and recalibrate their minds to this new development.

When they reached the safe house, exhausted and famished, the small grey building seemed almost welcoming to them.

They walked the corridors to the operations hall in silence, hand in hand, neither wanting to break the bond that had formed in the last few hours, but as soon as the doors ahead opened, and none other than Director Fury himself stepped through them, Melinda dropped her fingers away from Phil.

They both felt the loss as soon as their skin broke contact, filling them with a sense of incompleteness, shivers of ice through their blood.

As they were debriefed, Fury shooting looks between them as though he already knew what had happened, the two tried not to focus on the absence of humming in their hearts, of pulsing through their veins; how they were inexplicably tied to one another for life, with nothing able to change that now.

* * *

 

They spent their spare time over the next few years - what little of it they had - together, working on understanding what kind of a bond they had been gifted.

Tentative touches of hands to wrists, of fingertips to cheeks however, taught them only that their emotions were linked in some unknown way, that they could sense what the other felt.

It wasn’t until one night several years later, on a mission in Siberia in freezing conditions, that they worked out what else that bond actually meant.

Phil couldn’t sleep, the anxiety and stress from their day, coupled with the sub-zero temperatures all around the safe house, left him tossing and turning throughout the night.

When Melinda rolled over to face him, seeing the moonlight illuminating his face and the frustration in his eyes, she reached out to him almost unconsciously, letting her fingertips rest against his cheek.

Phil watched her warily, wondering what she was doing, and suddenly widened his gaze, realising with a jolt that she was sending calming emotions through her fingertips and into his body.

“How are you doing that?” he murmured to her, transfixed as much by this new sensation as by the fact he was lying curled up next to her; they had been friends for years now, but there had always been that lingering tension between them, one that suggested their soulbond was more than simply to do with physical touch. This mission forced them to share a bed for warmth, and Phil knew it was pushing both of their limits right to the edge of the cliff.

She shook her head. “I don’t know… instinct?”

She continued to brush her fingers over his jawline, soothing ripples blossoming against his skin, and before he knew it, Phil was asleep.

Melinda smiled to herself, and let her fingers remain there all night.

The next morning, after waking entangled in both each other’s arm and multiple soft-cotton sheets, they gave in to temptation, falling over the precipice and into the oblivion below.

As they made love, the early morning sun drifting lazily through the curtain gap, they cemented their bond permanently.

He felt every wave of pleasure wash through her body, his fingertips drawing moans from her throat, and blossoming pleasure from beneath her skin. She echoed every shiver of anticipation, every sensation of joy that he emitted, mapping him with both her mind and body as they realised they had to stop fighting whatever it was that drew them together in the first place.

* * *

 

They were known to be the best two-man team in SHIELD at one point.

Every agent wanted to work with them, and everyone wanted to know their secret.

They didn’t tell many people about their link, for fears that if the information got out, about their soulbond and ability to control the others’ emotions, it could be used against them by enemy forces.

Fury watched the two of them closely over the years that followed, happy to keep sending them in on missions together, knowing they could work better than any other pair within his ranks.

But even he almost drew the line, when he discovered that their relationship wasn’t as strictly professional as he’d hoped.

Everybody knew they were close.

But it was the tip off from another agent, who had seen the two of them in a bar together after a late night mission one evening, Coulson’s hand resting comfortably on her bare thigh, as May whispered into his ear, that told Nick all he needed to know.

Relationships with fellow agents were not generally supported; they could be used against the individuals, just like a soulbond could. So the fact that his two best agents were not only bonded, but sleeping together as well, created the potential for a major catastrophe.

But Nick Fury played with fire.

Their results spoke volumes, so instead of doing the right thing, removed them from the team and sending them on mission separate, he monitored them, checked through their mission reports twice. He knew he was taking a risk by continuing to send them in together, but if they could keep their heads, and not let it affect their work, it was a risk he was willing to take.

* * *

 

When Bahrain hit, and Melinda’s world crumbled around her, at first she couldn’t feel a thing.

It was a weird sensation, having spent the past decade so closely in tune with her emotions, sharing them so openly with the person she loved more than anything in the world.

But when the nightmares arrived, accompanied by the agony of flashbacks and devastating terrors, she refused to let Phil touch her at all, not even a fingertip against her hand.

He begged her to let him help, to let him take away some of the pain she was feeling, to let him send calming waves through her body. She simply shook her head, and curled up alone on her side of the bed.

It took eight days, but when he finally made contact, brushing his hand against her arm after she reluctantly let him try, he could feel the emotion inside her, boiling up against her skin and crashing back down again, the violent waves pressing through her body, burning through her veins.

It was painful for even him to feel, and he realised exactly why she had tried to push him away.

She pulled her arm back as soon as she saw his face, the grimace and shock evident despite his desperate attempts to hide them.

“Don’t, Phil.”

“Let me help,” he begged quietly, reaching for her once more, only to watch as she took a step away from him. “Please Mel, let me take some of it from you.”

She shook her head.

“I can’t let you… I don’t want you to feel like this.”

He tried anyway, first for hours, then days. The days turned to weeks, weeks of him begging her to let him take away the pain, to come back to him, but she refused.

He could only watch helplessly as she pushed him further away.

The day she walked out of their apartment, a single tear on her cheek, was the day he knew he had lost her for good.


	2. Chapter 2

It took a long time, but Melinda eventually came back to him.

They weren’t close in the way they used to be, and they no longer were partnered in a romantic inclination, but Phil was grateful more than anything for the fact he had his friend back.

That was all he wanted, really.

She had changed, and he could sense it without needing to touch her skin. Something inside her was no longer present - whether it was destroyed forever, or simply concealed beneath the surface however, he did not know. But it was something he could learn to live with, just as she was trying to do.

They went on fewer missions together, Melinda opting to spend more of her time dealing in paperwork and the background of assignments, than actually out in the field, but in his opinion, it was the right decision for her.

They still were friends, and they still spoke, but something was missing, and despite how much it hurt him, Phil knew if it was helping her to recover, then it was right.

He often wondered, in the dead of night when he found sleep evading him once more, if he would ever feel her fingertips against his cheek again, lulling him into sleep with the ripples of calm.

Wondered if he’d one day be able to take her hand, and not be knocked over by the strength of pain radiating from under her skin.

It was a throwaway remark from Natasha however, that dropped his heart into his stomach, and sent his dreams to the pits of regret.

They were sat in a bar in Budapest one evening, alongside Clint, their recent assignment finally completed, and their flight back scheduled for the following morning. Somehow, and Phil later swore it wasn’t himself who brought the subject up, they had been discussing Melinda, and how much they missed her being out in the field with them.

“But at least she’s happier now,” Natasha had commented, absently sipping her drink, the ice cubes clattering against the sides of the glass as she tipped it towards her mouth. “Although I still find it weird she’s dating that psychologist she was seeing.”

Phil had swallowed, desperately trying not to let his shock show, but inside, his mind was in overdrive.

Melinda was seeing somebody. And she hadn’t told him about it.

Not that she had to. He knew that it was her life, and maybe she might feel awkward, given their history and the soulbond they shared, but even so, he thought she would still be able to trust him.

He simply nodded in response, muttering a low “Yeah, it’s great”, before downing the rest of his drink, and heading back to his hotel room, stunned.

* * *

 

She told him herself, a few weeks later.

But it didn’t help ease the pain.

“What we have” she gestured between them, her eyes imploring him to understand. “It’s amazing, Phil. But... maybe it’s just meant to be platonic.”

Phil wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince him, or herself, her words filled with some kind of strange pleading that he’d never heard from her before, and he could do nothing but nod, forcing a smile to his face.

She was happier now, happier than she had been straight after Bahrain anyway, and if this “Andrew” helped with that, then Phil knew he would just have to deal with it.

She was right, as usual. Not all soulmates had to be intimately involved with one another. They could do this, couldn’t they? Just be friends, colleagues, agents?

The rest of the evening was spent talking missions and assignments, their past experiences in the field and at the academy filling many of the remaining conversations.

He made sure their skin didn’t touch though before she left his apartment, knowing full well that if it did, she would be able to feel the chaos beneath the surface, and the turmoil of his emotions.

* * *

 

Phil worked hard to put his feelings into a little box, and locked it away in the back of his mind.

He got on with his job, being promoted from Level Five to Level Six, and leading more missions on his own.

Melinda officially transferred into administration, the stress of combat forcing too many memories back into her mind, and threatening to destroy her once again.

He understood, he really did.

The wedding invitation he received ten months later however, threw all his efforts to convince himself he only felt friendship for her, right out of the window.

He knew he would have to move on, and watching Melinda exchange vows with another man gave Phil the kick he needed.

* * *

 

When he met Audrey, two years later, he knew he’d found something special.

Even during the assignment to protect her from an obsessed gifted, Phil knew.

No, they didn’t have the bond he’d had with Melinda, and he was open with Audrey from the start about that fact.

She accepted it; having never found her own soulmate, she had given up searching, deciding that life was just great the way it was.

He introduced her and Melinda, so that Audrey knew there was nothing to worry about, her partner being bonded to another woman.

They were happy.

Phil couldn’t lie - he’d not felt that happy in years. Evenings to the theatre, meals in expensive restaurants, the love of a woman; life was amazing once more.

When they touched, he didn’t get that ripple of “rightness” through his veins, that instant connection that softened his soul, but they had chemistry, and they were genuinely... happy.

But it wasn’t to be.

* * *

 

Melinda felt the moment it happened.

She was running up the walls, working administration as phone after phone rang, and the piles of paperwork around her built up. There simply weren’t enough agents to deal with the crisis unfolding, and from down here, they were pretty much helpless anyway.

She knew Phil was on the helicarrier, knew he’d met his lifetime hero and was in discussions with Fury over the implementation of the Avengers Initiative. She wasn’t meant to know, not really, but the trust between Phil and herself was as strong now as it had been back when they were fresh out of the academy, and she’d sworn not to tell when he spilled the secret to her one week prior.

They’d met for drinks, and she’d realised all too late that she missed him; they’d brushed hands accidentally, and everything they were missing out on came flooding straight back to her, almost overwhelming her with the strength of emotion.

She’d forced herself to recompose her expression. From the looks of things, he was doing the same.

The rest of the night had been light conversation. She’d found her mind wandering back to when they were together, and why she’d given it up…

An alarm on the other side of the office brought Melinda’s mind back to the present, and it was immediately obvious that everything up there on the helicarrier was going wrong.

The Asgardian had already taken several agents hostage, holding them under some kind of spell to do his bidding, and when the emergency call was sent out by the helicarrier indicating things had suddenly gotten a hell of a lot worse, every agent on the ground had burst into operation...

It was exactly three in the afternoon when Melinda felt it.

At first, she wondered what precisely it was she could feel, looking around her to see if anybody else had sensed something… weird. The other agents continued with their tasks.

That’s when she realised the truth; she could feel an ache, a growing ache in her chest so deep within her it was almost surreal. A dull, pounding ache that crept through her body, numbing her muscles as it whispered through veins.

Every sensation faded - the nerves, the worry, the adrenaline, the confusion. Everything. Until she was left with just the pain under her ribcage like no other.

Without needing any information, she knew.

The phone call she received a couple of hours later, from a distraught Maria who was trying to hold herself together for her friend’s sake, only confirmed every thought she’d had swimming through her scrambled mind during the chaos that followed.

Phil was gone.

* * *

 

As Andrew spent the night holding his wife, never having seen a single tear from her before, let alone the torrent that was uncontrollably pouring down her cheeks, he could do no more than simply rock her, murmuring what he hoped were soothing words, and pressing kisses to her temple.

It was the first time he’d felt close to her in a while, and that realisation hit hard. Maybe they hadn’t been as happy together as they’d been fooling themselves.

She was limp in his arms, and no matter what he did, he already knew that nothing was going to help with this amount of pain.

The person she needed right now, to calm her and take away the pain, was gone.

Her soulmate was gone.

* * *

 

When the divorce papers were handed to him, only a fortnight later, he was unsurprised.

He’d known all along, really, that Coulson would come first in her life, and even though she promised him that she did love him, Andrew knew what the hidden message in her words was.

She loved Phil more.


	3. Chapter 3

Melinda spent the first few days after Phil’s death, with a constant ache in her chest.

But as the days ticked into a week, and then more, the pain faltered, before coming and going sporadically. She had been sure it would be there forever, as a constant reminder she had lost her other half, the second piece of a whole.

The ache would increase, sending stabbing pains through her heart. Sometimes it would vanish completely, as though he was stood right next to her, perfectly fine and well. When she focused on that however, it filled her with even more sorrow than before, and the pain would return once more.

Missing Phil, to the level that she craved him, told her all she needed to know about her marriage with Andrew.

They had married fast, telling themselves their love was real. But looking back, she wondered if it wasn’t just a cover for the truth - that she would always love her soulmate more.

The divorce papers were handed to him after a fortnight, and whilst she regretted having to do it, she knew it was the right decision - they weren’t happy together, and with SHIELD and Phil being the way there were, they were unlikely to be able to work properly in the future.

* * *

 

One morning, the pain in her chest dulled.

Melinda was already awake, having tossed and turned for hours on end before realised sleep just wasn’t going to come to her.

She’d almost grown used to the period attacks to her chest, those moments of the day or night when it felt like a hot blade sliced through her again, re-severing the bond she knew had already been broken.

But this morning was different. The pain was still there, but it was lighter, more bearable. It was a pain that she could carry out her daily life without really registering until it was focused upon.

She hated the idea that her body might have been moving on. That the bond being cut was gradually healing.

She was scarred, from the inside out.

* * *

 

Nick Fury turning up at the Triskelion wasn’t unheard of. But when he showed up right at Melinda’s cubicle, ten days after the ache in her chest had calmed, half the office stopped working to watch.

Melinda glanced up from the paperwork she had been staring through for the past hour - her focus was completely gone, and really there was no point in her even being there - and found Fury shaking his head slightly at her dishevelled appearance.

Well screw him. Just because she hadn’t slept properly since the day Phil died…

Fury dropped a brown paper file onto her desk, muttering instructions for her to open it only once she was alone, before he left, giving her one last look over his shoulder. She could have sworn she saw a flash of sympathy in his eye, but then it was gone once more.

* * *

 

The contents of the file broke her heart once more.

He was alive. Her soulmate was alive, by some miracle of technology and alien DNA. It explained the erratic behaviour of her heart, of the pain she felt between her ribs.

She didn’t want to think about why it had been getting worse and then better across the weeks. Didn’t want to consider that each stab was Phil getting closer to death once more, and each decrease in pain him coming back to consciousness.

As she read about the mission Fury was blackmailing her into, and how she was to return to the field to protect Phil, she could feel the jagged pieces beginning to slot messily back into place.

* * *

 

They worked side by side once more.

She flew the BUS, and he ran the missions. The dream team was back together again, the only difference being, they didn’t touch.

Not at first, anyway.

They came close, a couple of times, but each occasion was restrained, holding back the force of the truth as they came together to simply… talk.

Phil would worry over his life, and what had happened to him since his death, and Melinda stood before him, instructing him to remove his shirt so she could see the scar for herself.

“There’s no way you can go through a trauma like that, and not come out of it changed” she told him, beautiful eyes filled with an emotion he could see, but not feel. “You know how long it’s taken me?”

“I know” he murmured in response, never breaking eye contact with her; he did know, knew full well what every moment since that day had been like for her, fighting away her nightmares so she could live as normal life as possible.

* * *

 

Phil had never intended for an object the team recovered to harm one of their own.

But as soon as Ward had picked up the Berserker Staff, everybody could see instantly that things weren’t right.

He was swimming in memories he’d fought his life to forget, and touching the Asgardian Staff broke down every defence he had built up.

Phil could only watch helplessly as Melinda’s hands wrapped around the engraved metal, her attempts to help a fellow agent causing her more pain than Phil had witnessed in a long time.

She was silent, for a long time afterwards.

It was only when they were sat alone in the hotel bar later that evening, that he managed to talk to her.

“You can still feel it?” he asked quietly, taking the seat next to her at the varnished wooden bar, and ordering another two drinks in, the glasses of amber liquid setting down in front of the pair of them moments later.

She simply nodded, a quick, curt nod that cut into his heart.

He knew what she needed, but also knew, he had no right to push it on her.

“Melinda” he murmured quietly, imploring her gaze to focus on him, and watching as she slowly swirled the contents of her glass around instead. “I can help.”

With his words, she froze, not looking at him, rather staring through the bar in front of them. He knew she was seeing the images she’d tried so desperately to never see again, knew that if he let their skin make contact, the flames would lick away with such strength it would burn.

She brought the glass back to her lips, downing the remaining contents in one swig, before replacing the tumbler onto the surface before her. Melinda rose from the stool she had been sat upon, and walked away in silence, leaving Phil alone at the bar with a half-finished drink.

It was the second time he had watched his soulmate walk away from him after he had offered help. The first had left him devastated, filled with regret and years of longing. She’d pushed him away then because she didn’t want him to hurt too.

Was that why she was doing it now?

Without even thinking, Phil stood, following her from the bar, and spotting her at the end of the corridor, waiting for the lift up to her floor.

He swallowed, and walked towards her.

She’d pushed him away once, when she needed him more than ever before, and he knew how much it had hurt her. He’d be damned if it was happening again.

“Let me help, Melinda.”

She glanced up to find him stood by her side once more, meeting his gaze, staring into the eyes she knew as well as her own reflection. He looked back at her so earnestly, so desperate to try and help her in some way.

He knew what Bahrain had done to her, knew how much it hurt when he tried to take some of her pain into his own body. And he remembered all too well how she had pushed him away.

Phil reached out, not moving any closer to her where they stood, before he let his fingertips touch the back of her hand.

He could almost taste the darkness as their flesh touched. Flashes of black and red and anger spreading through his body, right from the point they were connected. It was almost as bad as after Bahrain. Almost.

She could see it in his eyes, that he was feeling it as she did, and she pulled her hand away - again. But this time, he followed it, linking his fingers back through hers and holding on; she wasn’t pushing him away this time.

He drew on everything he knew about their bond, everything they had ever been through together, everything they had ever shared. He willed the calm though his fingertips, radiating soothing notions through his skin, praying to some unknown entity that it would work, that their bond would still hold up its strength despite his death.

She closed her eyes and swallowed, and Phil watched her take a deep breath, her shoulders sagging slightly, before she looked right at him.

Melinda gave a tiny nod.

It was the sign he had been looking for. Not breaking contact with her, and not halting his attempts to transfer serenity into her body, he stood, leading her away from the elevator doors with him, and up the single flight of stairs to his room.

Removing the keycard from his pocket, he let them both into his room in silence, closing the door behind them, before walking them to the middle of the room, moving her round so she stood in front of him.

“Whatever you need, Mel” he murmured to her. He wouldn’t push, he wouldn’t try and force her to accept his calm, he would simply let her lead, let her choose how to proceed.

She seemed to wait for few moments, contemplating within herself what it was she really needed, and whether she could do this.

But seconds later, she slowly linked their other hands together, taking a step towards him, cautiously leaning her forehead against his chest.

Phil rested his chin on the top of her head, before dropping a gentle kiss along her hairline.

He pretended not to feel the flutter of emotion that broke through the anger in her body.

It could have been minutes later, or nearer to an hour, Phil wasn’t quite sure, but at some point they moved from the middle of the room to his bed.

He simply held her close, absorbing as much of her pain as he could without it causing himself anger, and trying harder than he ever had before to help calm her.

She broke contact for a moment in the dark, and he waited patiently as she removed first her jacket, and then her overshirt, leaving her in a thin black vest-top, before she kicked off her shoes. Melinda curled back up against him, resting her head against his chest as he let his arms wrap around her in the silence.

The lay there in the quiet together, streetlight from the Dublin road outside illuminating the room in a soft glow.

Phil could feel her breathing slowing, her body succumbing to the rest it so desperately needed, despite how much she fought it.

But he was surprised when she moved suddenly from his side, reaching her hands out to tug at the hem of his shirt. He paused, watching her carefully, ensuring she was sure with her choice. She simply looked back at him with tired eyes, and gave a tiny smile.

He knew what she was doing, instinctively seeking out more flesh so the effects of his calming were stronger; it was something they had discovered many years ago - the closer the contact, the more powerful the connection. Phil took a deep breath, knowing how close they were to pushing their unspoken boundaries, before helping her tug off his shirt.

She’d seen his scar, only once before, but it still filled him with dread when he watched her eyes scan across the raised flesh, worried she would turn away, disgusted with it.

But she didn’t. Instead, she clambered half asleep over him, until she was curled in his lap, wrapping her arms around his sides, and laying her cheek against his shoulder.

Within minutes, she was asleep once more, and Phil let the gentle rhythm of her breathing lull him into calm himself. He could feel the rage she’d tried so hard to keep away from him, but as her body sagged against him, giving over to the unconscious respite she had been searching for, her defences dropped - and she’d clearly been trying to hide half of her pain from him over the previous few hours.

The violence of emotion that swept through her skin as she fell to slumber almost overwhelmed him, and Phil admittedly struggled to fight it back. But he kept going, emitting as much positive energy as he could to her, desperate to help her sleep in peace.

He encircled his arms around her tighter, letting the bare skin of his own encase her petite frame, ensuring he touched any exposed skin he could, without crossing the line they still had between them, despite this night. His fingertips drifted along her lower back, where her vest rose up slightly as she moved, and he rested his head against the top of hers, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead.

It was that final touch that did it, and he felt the calm beginning to take effect.

* * *

 

If they continued sleeping next to each other again in the weeks that followed, nobody questioned it.

Maybe it took them twenty years of dancing around, but they eventually realised that whilst it was great just being friends, they both wanted so much more.

 


End file.
